Back to Work I Go

My little man was 5 months old when I went back to work and I was not ready to leave him. At the time, I was questioning how to manage cloth diapers and washing them myself (along with the pressures and requirements of working full time and being a mom). When he started in day care I had 22 pocket diapers in use, while on maternity leave this was plenty. I washed them every other day and had the schedule down pat. While interviewing day care provides, I always asked the very important question, “Do you mind using cloth diapers?” The woman that we chose was so excited to learn that we were using mainly BumGenius because that’s what she was thinking about using for her baby (due in July). She was excited to have a “trial run” with cloth on our baby. After a week back at work, and continuing to wash diapers every other day, I was exhausted. My husband suggested that we get new diapers and I was able to get 6 new BumGenius! It was such a relief.

Our routine is as follows: at night I pack the baby’s bag for day care, he get 5 or 6 diapers and multiple flannel wipes. In the morning, my husband or I change the incredibly full nighttime diaper (typically it is a Fuzzi Bunz stuffed with a prefold wrapped around an insert). During the day he wears BumGenius, Haute Pockets, and Happy Heinys with only one insert.When I realize that there are 6 or less diapers in the closet, I start the laundry. I generally start the diapers in the afternoon/evening. I do two loads, (one cold, one hot) and then put all of the inserts and wipes in the dryer. The diapers are hung to dry on a rack in the laundry room. When everything is dry, we put everything on a chair in the living room and in the morning or at some free point during the next day we re-stuff the diapers and start the process over again.

This has worked out well for us, we currently have 33 diapers in use and are able to wash them every 2-3 days. I thought that I would have more of a schedule (such as every Sunday and Wednesday), but it hasn’t worked out that way. We have found that some days he needs to be changed more frequently than others and that there isn’t really a true pattern to this. I also realized that although the task seemed daunting (washing diapers and working full time), I could do it (with the help of hubby) and that it is well worthwhile.

Great job with keeping up with it all. I don’t work outside the house and still have trouble keeping up with it all the time. I am thankful to have a ton of prefolds to fall back on if I get too far behind.

Awesome! We’re using a service right now for our diapers, but I’m seriously considering switching to doing them ourselves, but the task of doing laundry and working is daunting! So glad you have a helpful hubby and that it’s working out for you! Should you not put the BG diapers in the dryer???

Sara– I actually just put the wipes in the wash with the diapers. We use California Baby Diaper Area Wash as our “wipe solution”.

Kelly– I really hope that as we get “greener” larger daycare centers will also allow cloth diapers. I am bummed that this summer (while the daycare provider is on maternity leave) I’ll have to get disposables for him.

Finally another Mom working full time and cloth diapering! Everyone thinks I am crazy, but it is so much easier to wash at home and spend that little extra time with baby, opposed to stopping at the store on my way home to buy more diapers, not to mention taking the trash off too!

As a daycare provider myself, it seems strange to me that so many don’t allow the use of cloth diapers. It’s really NO extra work for the provider. I think it’s just a matter of education and information sharing. Congrats on finding such a good fit for taking care of your little guy!

Coconuts– On the closet door, is a basic over the door organizer, it has 4 pockets and I can hold about 6 diapers in each pocket… sometimes I make it to 30 in there, depends on the day and the wash schedule

Nikki & Talina– I let my diapers air dry to attempt to preserve the PUL and the elastic in the legs. Not sure if it's helping, but I figure it's something!! Plus the I can move the whole rack out into the sun, when it's warm! The inserts do well in the dryer.

Yeah for you that you can use cloth even at daycare. I LOVE how you hang your dipes on the drying rack. I do too! It really helps prolong the life of those beautiful diapers and saves energy too. I hang mine overnight and then fluff all in the morning on warm for 20 minutes or so and they are good to go. It softens and fluffs up the prefolds, inserts and doublers and gets the sticky tabs working great on the PUL covers with velcro tabs.

This is a great reality check. I’ll be a mom of 2 trying this while working (only 1 in diapers). I am realizing I will need more diapers than some but willing to try. Still laundry during the week isn’t exactly my specialty right now.

I can't say enough how incredibly lucky you are to have found a daycare that will use your cloth diapers! I'm assuming from your wording that it is an in-home daycare though, and we go to a center that will not consider using our cloth. Very disappointing. Everything you said echoes my experience as a working mom, too–but you have a much larger stash than i do! Congrats on balancing the whole working mom challenge! You sound very at peace with it and that's important for your health and health of baby! ~camille

I started cloth diapering after I had already returned to work. My coworkers are shocked, they can't believe that I would put that much extra 'work' on myself. Really I don't think that it is that much more work than before. An extra load of laundry here or there really isn't as much 'work' as some might think.